Blog

Five Years of Thinking: Lessons Learned from Digital Domain

It’s been five years since the State of Florida entered into its agreement with ill-fated Digital Domain. It is entirely appropriate to offer a few of the lessons we’ve learned which continue to serve as guiding principles for Thinkspot’s economic progress framework (TRIS3).

1) One thing more important than learning from your own mistakes is making the effort to prevent others from repeating them.

2) All industries and companies have a life cycle; the continuous churn of firms entering and leaving the market is unavoidable and beyond the control of government.

3) There is no government incentive evaluation process currently practiced with a comprehensive evaluation of community profit and loss.

4) When you play the game of picking winners and losers, you must expect losers.

5) Avoid the game of picking winners and losers.

6) The goals of economic development must be broadened beyond job creation to embrace overall quality of life.

7) The greatest potential for improving the quality of life can be found in building the capacity for innovation and entrepreneurship beyond what the free market can provide.

8) Individuals and organizations who expect to benefit from the current system will be the last to embrace reform.